


Food (That Isn't People)

by The_Button_Harlequin



Series: Hannibal Advent 2015 [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Comfort Food, Fluff, Food, Hannibal is a thirsty Cannibal, M/M, but Will cooks very well, in honor of new hobbies, not people food, people are in tears, well the food is for people but the food itself is not people, what I'm saying is that Will cooked the food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Button_Harlequin/pseuds/The_Button_Harlequin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal said that Will needed hobbies. In response, Will decided to dig up some old memories of his beloved aunt and proceed to make a fuck ton of food.</p><p>It's amazing food, the kind that has Hannibal crying kind of food.</p><p>Hannibal had no idea how much he'd fallen in love with Will kind of amazing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food (That Isn't People)

**Author's Note:**

> Hannibal Advent: Day 2

“You need to better focus your energies, Will,” Hannibal stated, relaxed and poised in his leather arm chair. “I have several activities in mind, if you’re willing to try them.”

Will halted his pacing to consider the carpet instead. “The dogs and the crime scenes are usually enough to make me tired,” he said, his feet taking him over to the wide window instead, “and I feel that all I am is a bag of exhaustion most days.”

“You’re reached the point where you are so exhausted that you are energetic,” Hannibal told him, standing up to walk to Will’s side, “It’s a survival mechanism that allows hunter gatherers to live off of adrenaline and anxiety for days. For the modern man however, it is nothing short of a certainty for collapse.”

Will’s shoulders tensed at the words. He brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck to cover it, tugging the ends of soft curls just for the sensation of it. “What do you suggest then? Picking up hobbies and going to yoga class isn’t exactly something that I would fit into.”

“Yoga is very calming, and has been used as a therapeutic technique for centuries. It wouldn’t go amiss in today’s health fad either.”

“If I ever feel like doing yoga it’s the day I really need to be considered for psychiatric institutions,” Will snorted, “at least with fishing I get to have the stillness and food afterwards.”

Hannibal considered him, allowing his gaze to settle on the fingers that still pulled the curls taut. “Have you considered the possibility of a new hobby altogether, one that pulls you closer to another person’s presence while leaving both to your own devices? Cooking lessons perhaps?”

Will’s eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “With you?”

Hannibal gave a single nod with a small smile, “With me.”

Will thought about it for only a moment before shaking his head. “No thanks. Being that close to someone isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

Hannibal pursed his lips. His voice, bland and steady, said, “As you wish. Cooking is one of my own favorite forms of self stability. Gathering and preparing the ingredients is, truly, one of life’s greatest pleasures.”

Will nodded awkwardly, glancing down to his watch just for something to do. “I have to go let the dogs out soon,” he murmured, knowing that Hannibal could hear. “I’ll see you again next week.” With that, he gathered his things and left.

Hannibal remained near the window, watching as an old sedan drove down the street. He hummed to himself an old sonata he’d heard as a boy, made sure his phone’s ringtone was as loud as possible, and made his own way home. 

Alone for now, but not forever.

* * *

The thoughts of cooking and new hobbies didn’t leave Will, even as he made his way to his own little home on the outskirts civilization. He remembered that making things, eating your creation, was something that his aunt used to do when he’d stayed over at her house as a kid still not used to being independent. He remembered the smells of cake and jumbalaya and the more frequent scents of cookies and small pastries that he almost couldn’t name. He remembered everything that took to get them perfect though.

She’s shown her affection and love through food. It was, ironically, the one thing that killed her too. A heart attack, right there in front of him when he was fourteen and just realizing that he’d be a wallflower forever at her block invited picnics. She’d been so big and heavy it’d taken four of the biggest men there to carry her down to the ambulance that arrived too late. The people at her funeral had said she’d been killed by her own kindness.

Will thought that she’d gone the way she’d always wanted to go. Full and happy, surrounded by the people she loved who were all stuffed with the food she’d made herself. Will hadn’t seen someone die better since.

It might have been the nostalgia, it might have been the old thoughts of his aunt or maybe Hannibal’s prodding, but the drive home was punctuated by only one stop at Wal-Mart and an entire cart full of ingredients he hadn’t put together by himself in over twenty years.

Letting the dogs have their affection was almost on autopilot when he released them to play for a little while, propping the door open with an old stool to let them come and go as they pleased. He’d carried in the groceries, vaguely wiped down the counters, and got to work.

* * *

“Will, what the _fuck_.”

Will’s attention was jerked up to Beverly’s shocked curse. “What?”

She waved one arm uselessly in the direction of the entire room. “What is all of this? Trying to feed the entire FBI?”

Will frowned at the brownies, all five batches of them, and then glanced over to the five tureens of thick, savory jumbalaya on the counters of the conference room where the grainy coffee usually sat.

He gave a shrug. “Hannibal suggested that I pick up some new hobbies and cooking happened to be one of them.”

“Yeah, a big cake and a bowl of pasta probably but all this is a little much,” Beverly stepped gingerly over a few Tupperware boxes filled with cookies. “I think you might’ve gone a little overboard, don’t ya think?”

“No,” Will was setting up one of those little tier trays of brownies and snickerdoodles now, “but if you want any then you might as well help me out setting all of this up.”

Beverly sighed, but knelt down to begin doing just that.

It took them all of twenty minutes to get everything in order, not that there was much order to begin with. 

“Jesus, Will, how did you make all this?” Beverly muttered in near awe. Not an inch of conference table was visible beneath the trays and bowls of food, overlapping in some instances because they’d needed to make room for more.

Will tugged the hair at the nape of his neck. “I, uh, might have been cooking for the better part of the weekend.”

“Yeah no shit. Did you not _sleep_?”

Finally, like a bright sunbeam escaping from behind the clouds, Will smiled. “I’ve never slept better after all this.”

“Hey guys, what’s that _jesus christ_!”

Beverly smirked. “Morning, Zeller.”

Price poked his head from around Zeller and gaped. “Did we have a party I’m not aware of?”

“Just a break through in therapy,” Beverly grinned, giving Will a playful nudge.

Will only ducked his head, smiling all the while.

* * *

Hannibal canceled his last two appointments of the day, hastening to the FBI Academy. He’d received a call from Jack only an hour before, detailing that “ _Will might’ve finally cracked. You might want to take a look at this_.”

When he’d arrived, however, he’d found the opposite of a disaster, if you counted an entire boardroom full of FBI agents a disaster. A party seemed to be in an easy buzz of friendliness and, what looked like, crying.

He spotted Crawford over by a large, nearly half empty tureen of something that smelled spicy and homey. He called out to the BAU head, approaching more cautiously when he saw the glistening beginning of tears.

“Hello there, Dr. Lecter,” Crawford panted, dabbing at his eyes with a paper napkin that only highlighted how red his face was, a small paper bowl of the tureen’s contents in his other hand with a plastic spoon sticking out.

“Jack,” Hannibal began, “you said this was an emergency.”

“I was wrong,” Crawford’s gapped grin was only widened as he spotted something behind Hannibal, “So very wrong.”

Hannibal turned to see, to his eternal surprise, Brian Zeller nearly hanging off of Will’s shoulders in laughter, a bowl stacked high with cookies and brownies and perhaps a slice of cake gripped securely in his hand. Will seemed to be trying to push him off onto Beverly, who was pushing him on to a more willing and giggly teary-eyed Jimmy. 

“Will?” Hannibal assisted in transferring Brian to Jimmy, where they pulled their heads together to gossip about whatever it was they gossiped about.

“Hey there, Dr. Lecter,” Beverly smirked, eyes dancing between him and Will, “That was some great advice you gave Will. You should do it again, but emphasize more on the Danishes and less on the gumbo.”

“It’s jumbalya,” Will said it as if he’d been saying it for the last hour.

Beverly waved him off. “I gotta make sure that Jimmy’s alright anyways. That cake you made nearly gave him an orgasm, I mean you gotta warn a guy before you present him with something that sinful.”

“It was devil’s food cake- Bev!” Already making her way through the crowd, Beverly was gone in seconds. Will turned back to Hannibal, who was both amused and confused by that point. He cleared his throat, “I followed your advice.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Hannibal said, making a show of looking around at the half finished piles of sweets and nearly gone amounts of jumbalaya. “Although, I believe you might have gone a little-”

“Overboard, yeah, I got that.” Will watched full lips pull into a smile, “But it helped. I remembered all of what my Aunt Lily taught me and, well, here we are now.”

“Did she make such vast amounts of food as well?” Hannibal took up a small paper plate and was about to place a small brownie on it, only to be stopped by callused hands.

“Yeah, she liked having people over,” Will placed the brownie on the plate for Hannibal, but gave him a strawberry and rhubarb Danish in his hands as well. “I helped her out, when she took care of me. I saved that for you, by the way. They kept running out and that was the last one left and I figured you’d, you’d want to at least try one, I guess.”

Hannibal‘s features softened. “Thank you, Will. I’m sure I’ll love it.” Will ducked is head down, going back to organizing the remnants of the sweet feast. Hannibal was still able to spy the flattered look before he disappeared into the chatting crowd.

That left Hannibal to examine the Danish. It smelled fantastic, clearly baked by hand and there was just something about the jam topping that Hannibal, with all of his vast knowledge on cuisine, simply couldn’t place.

Knowing that Will had saved it for him (and didn’t that stir a delightful thought in his belly) he took a cautious bite.

And the stars aligned, the planets sang and there was peace on Earth. He understood. Memories that were far fonder than he knew them to be sprang to mind. Cold nights in a warm kitchen spent at his mother’s elbow and his sister sleeping softly in his arms, his father outside collecting firewood. It was nothing like the thick and hearty meals of Lithuania, but the feeling, that special ingredient Hannibal could not place, was there.

Home was where the heart is.

And Hannibal could taste every ounce of heart in it.

* * *

“I insist.”

“I mean if you’re sure-”

“Quite sure.”

“But sweets I can do, a whole dinner…”

“I have all the faith in the world in you, Will.”

“…I’ll be over by six.”

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. You can find me on Tumblr as honestly-adorkable


End file.
